fact that the sword-bearer was appointed, according to the entry in the Liber Allus... as propres costages du Mair, and not at the cost of the city.’
The sword-bearer is remarkable on account of the distinctive head-covering or ‘cap of maintenance’ which is appropriated to his office.[283]
It is not known when the City of London first possessed a mace or maces, but Mr. Hope refers to the Liber Custumarum to prove that as early as 1252 there were sergeants who carried staves of some kind as emblems of authority. ‘We know this from the claim put forth on the occasion of the Iter of the pleas of the Crown held at the Tower in 1321, that the Mayor and citizens of London should have their own porter and usher, and their own sergeants with their staves. As it was shown that the same claim had been successfully made in 1276-1277, and in 1252 it was allowed’ Mr. Hope quotes from Letter Book F a record of the appointment of Robert Flambard as mace-bearer in 1338, and from this it is clear that the office was not then a newly created one.’[284]
For the due carrying on of the business of the Corporation several new offices have at various times been established, but the foregoing are the officials who carried on the work of the city during the Middle Ages. Much of interest might have been added of these men, but it is only necessary here to refer to them generally as those to whom so much of the history of London was due.
The chief business of the city has been carried on for many centuries in the Guildhall, which is of unknown antiquity. It is almost certain that the building was in existence on the same spot as early as the twelfth century. It was rebuilt in 1411, and has been greatly altered at different times since then. The most interesting portion of the old building will be found in the extensive Gothic crypt which is shown in the illustration on page 273. The open timber roof of the Hall was not added until the alterations of 1866-1870 by the late Sir Horace Jones.